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May His Face Shine Upon You, Under His Wing

by Under His Wing on 2006 Jul 25 - 12:31 | reply to this comment
Adam, Where Are You?
I have loved so many of your articles and posts, Stephan, and so much appreciated what you said here.

What you said about a husband's accountability doesn't feel like an aside at all really, but rather part of the heart of things:

"What often goes unnoticed by casual readers in Ephesians 5: 21 -33 (because most people focus on the command that wives must submit to their husband) is the command to a husband that he present his wife "holy and without blemish" before the Lord. This means that he will be held responsible by God for his wife. This responsibility goes all the way back to Genesis. If you read carefully Genesis 3: 8 - 11 (I read this for years w/o understanding its implications) it shows that Adam is held responsible for his lack of leadership of Eve. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and God came to call them to account, it didn't matter that Eve had eaten first; God said, "Adam, where are you?" (notice He is not addressing Eve) That's God's word to Adam, husband, where are you?"

That touched such a deep chord. Core phrases like that are like core images, they too plant healing seeds. And I suspect I'll be carrying this one with me from now on, and when darkness tries to creep through the unguarded space call out inside "Adam, where are you?" Kind of a wake up call to the "sleeping husband", and an equally needed opening for him in his "abandoned wife".

This understanding you have put so elequently is also found, though through a different angle, in Jewish lore about the Shekinah. She is seen by some as God's wife sadly in "exile", because of Isreal's (the church's) sinning and needing to return again to the arms of God. In essence the Shekinah and Isreal are God's bride, and when one part of her has turned away from Him the other part suffers as well through the pain and danger of seperation from her husband. You might also be interested in Philip Lancastor's article "Male Passivity: The Root of All Evil". I can't seem to find the full article online right now (the site it came from was redone), but the link here quotes its essence, below: